of the Council of Trent show that the Catholics of the sixteenth
century were not demanding less but more personal involvement
from the Lutherans. The personal attachment of leading Catholics
like Ignatius of Loyola was certainly comparable to that of Lutherans.
The present study opts for the view that while the personal appro-
priation of faith in Luther may also be a forerunner of modernity, it
primarily continues the discussion onoikeiosisandcommendatio.In
Bernard and Thomas, we see the feudal idea of personal allegiance to
the lord. The recognition of the lord and the attachment of the servant
follows this pattern to a great extent, although it also continues some
Augustinian and early Christian trends. While Luther takes over medi-
eval terminology, he focuses on the basic epistemic situation of the
individual rather than the feudal relationship. In doing this, Luther
approaches the Ciceronian roots of commendatio,althoughwith
the important difference that the Reformer does not advocate self-
ownership but the recognition of being constituted by God.
Sometimes the terminological proximity to Cicero’s language is
nevertheless striking. For instance, Luther says that nature commends
poverty,^174 reflecting the view ofDe officiisthat nothing is private
property by nature. Luther can also claim that one mustfirst com-
mend the person and only then his works.^175 While Luther’s
emphasis on personal appropriation may be directed against scholas-
tic theology, it is by no means less relational than the feudal bond. In a
sense, it is even more relational, since the very existence of the
Christian person emerges from the basic recognition of the human
condition and the resulting humility. The relational constitution
concerns the attachment, although this attachment or‘belonging’is
no longer expressed in feudal or other economic terms.
A famous example of this anti-feudal spirit appears in thefirst lines
ofThe Freedom of a Christian. Luther considers there that Christians
are subject to nobody, although they are each other’s servants in
neighbourly love.^176 The personal appropriation of faith is worked
out in detail in Luther’s late disputationOn Faith. As in his early
Lectures on Romans, Luther here emphasizes personal appropriation.
This time he elaborates a concept of apprehensive faith, an
(^174) WA 14, 286, 29 (Reihenpredigten1523/4); 24, 351, 9 (Reihenpredigten über 1.
Mose).
(^175) WA 40/1, 340, 12 (In Gal.1531). Cicero,De officiis1, 7, 21.
(^176) De libertate Christiana, StA 2, 264, 17–18.
94 Recognition and Religion